About me

I am an approachable and experienced psychotherapist with 15 years experience as a practicing therapist.  I work online with clients internationally and see clients face to face in rural East Cork, 20 minutes from Cork city and 10 minutes from Cobh, Carrigtwohill and Midleton.  I’m originally from the UK and moved to Ireland in 2020 with my family.

Do you need psychotherapy? 

Psychotherapy can provide an opportunity for reflection and personal growth. I don’t have expectations of what you should look, feel or be like or of what you should bring. I have met and worked with people from all walks of life and ages, from those who have come to resolve some ‘stuckness‘ to those who are looking to get more out of life.

Psychotherapy can provide an opportunity to gain a greater awareness of yourself. This can lead to the discovery of your own untapped potential.

Why might you feel this way?

The stress of modern life can lead us to experience chronic pain, anxiety, depression and many other symptoms. Whilst growth, change, pain and loss are all natural processes, they can also be frightening and destabilizing which can create feelings of anger, helplessness and vulnerability.  In turn, these can also resurface ‘unfinished business’ from our past which we havent had the opportunity to process or resolve.

These feelings and experiences can seriously impact our lives including our relationships, physical health and work such that it can sometimes feel we are out of control. In a world where we are constantly told that we should be happy and healthy it can feel confusing and isolating when we feel the opposite. In fact, these reactions are really normal, it’s just that it can often take great courage to accept where we are and talk about our feelings with other people.  

 Whatever the trigger, psychotherapy is a safe and supported way to navigate through these issues.

What happens in psychotherapy? 

My role is to support you.  My style of therapy is caring, supportive and creative.

There is no ‘one-size fits all’ approach that I work to.  I enjoy working flexibly to meet your needs in the moment and as these change over time.  The foundation of my practice is Gestalt Psychotherapy with tools and skills integrated from Pain Reprocessing Therapy and Brainspotting.

Gestalt Psychotherapy

As a Gestalt psychotherapist, I believe that people potentially have all the necessary abilities to solve their problems or face their difficulties. However,  sometimes they get stuck and need assistance.  My task as a psychotherapist is to help you see more clearly what your situation is, find out how you are part of it, and experiment with finding new solutions.

Pain Reprocessing Therapy

About 1.5 billion people worldwide suffer from chronic pain, but many do not have to. Recent neuroscience breakthroughs show that most chronic pain results from the brain misinterpreting safe messages from the body as if they were dangerous. Research has found that the brain has the power to generate pain even in the absence of physical damage.

Pain Reprocessing Therapy (PRT) is a system of psychological techniques that retrains the brain to accurately interpret and respond to signals from the body, breaking the cycle of chronic pain. Although various treatments aim to manage pain, PRT stands apart as an evidence-based treatment to eliminate pain.

Brainspotting

Brainspotting is different from other psychotherapies and healing modalities in a variety of ways. It’s been discovered that where we look affects how we feel, and finding the best place to hold the client’s gaze helps to access the brain’s self-healing capabilities. Through  locating ‘gaze spots’ or ‘brain spots’ within the client’s visual field, Brainspotting  (BSP) is a tool that enables us to process and release distressing experiences that often remain beyond the reach of our conscious narrative.

Brainspotting was developed from EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitisation & Reprocessing). EMDR could be said to be one of the most embodied forms of psychotherapy as it brings more focus onto the client’s physiological state as a gateway into the emotional world.   Brainspotting then builds on this to deeper and profound levels through using still, rather than moving, eye positions that access specific neural pathways that are then processed towards healing.